In the midst of an already busy week, I managed to arrive at a long-awaited and significant moment this evening… I finished the mixing of a CD project I’ve been producing for the past year. My buddy David Bartlett, who is well-known in Brown County as the director of the Career Resource Center, is almost entirely unknown as a composer, songwriter and musician. But that’s about to change. I suspect ol’ Bart is up to it.
Beginning in October of last year (2013), Dave and I started doing weekly guitar lesson and recording sessions on Thursday evenings, working on rejuvenating his guitar chops and laying down tracks to tunes he wrote 30-35 years ago when he was a young man, pre-marriage, pre-kids, pre-career, etc. It started out as a sort of informal chronicle of his early compositions, with just he and I working the tracks. He played acoustic and classic guitars and sang, I played acoustic, classic, electric guitars, bass, guitar-synth and handled the drum programming.
Over the months, however, the project grew into something else, thanks to the additional (and awesome) talents of Carolyn Dutton (violin), Slats Klug (keys, squeezebox, harmonica, synth), Trish Rieke (percussion), Mel Chance (clarinet), Amanda Marie Webb (keys, vocals), and Suzette Weakley (vocals). The playlist is about half vocal tunes and half instrumentals.
The CD, entitled Live Your Life By A Song, is expected to be mastered and duped by late November, released on the StringDancer label, and readily available in and around Brown County. You’ll hear more about it, of course, when the drop finally comes. All the musicians enjoyed their work on the music, and I’m really proud of what we all managed to cobble together in my humble but comfy studio.
And I have to add — I can’t say enough about Bart’s intrepid attitude as he worked his ass off to reconnect with his muse after over three decades of it being relegated to the back burner of his busy life. He let nothing discourage him, eagerly taking in my suggestions and finger-nudging on the instrumental stuff, and Amanda Webb’s spot-on coaching on the fine art of singing. Bart’s a walking testimonial to the fact that it’s never too late to follow your heart and reach for something you really want. It’s been a fun, inspiring project, Bart and I have become good friends, and he’s elated with the outcome. I couldn’t be happier for him. Stay tuned for some audio teasers as the release dates draws near.
